Do me a favour: don't do me any favours.

I have a little something that I'd like to get off my chest. Specifically with girlfriends.

I'm not a needy friend. I do my own thing, and I let others do theirs. I check in, but I don't hover. Friendship shouldn't be something that you struggle to maintain. It doesn't need to be an every-day check in or a twice a week check-in. I think that a strong friendship is something that exists in between the lines: whether you see the person/write to the person once a week or once a month.

However, even if it is a monthly occurrence, it should be a reciprocal relationship. Full stop. And by that I mean, one person shouldn't be doing all the chasing. It's a two-way street.

My history with women has always puzzled me. I've always been fast friends with men, but women? Nope. I've never had a gaggle of girlfriends that I've hung out with, gone clubbing with, called on the phone to have a chat with, talked about my sex life with. My first real "best friend" was this girl Margee Krohn. Catholic school. I was 11, I think. I was so enamored with her. She had short red hair, freckles, and was really cool and had a great sense of humour. We lasted for about 4 months. Then one random day she started ignoring me, and dumped me for Stephanie McNulty, a wavy-haired blond girl. I was heartbroken, and spent the rest of the day crying onto my dark-green plaid school uniform.

My next relationship though, was the one that really affected me and my self-esteem, I'm embarrassed to admit. It was with this girl that I thought was the coolest girl ever. Both her parents and my parents were friends, we went to the same school, she was Ukrainian, we attended the same Ukrainian school and dance ensemble, I thought she was perfect. Dark brown pixie hair, big doe-eyes, thin frame, had a huge bedroom with lots of sparkly clothes and fancy-looking toys. I'd known her since I was 8. She did tend to make fun of me for things like singing in the car when we were being driven somewhere, or rolling her eyes at me when I would act like a "dork", but I didn't care. I loved being her friend and being part of the "cool" crowd at school. She sometimes pretended I didn't exist when she was with her other friends, but I never seemed to mind.

One day, when I was about 15, I was at dance practice. She would hang out with the rest of the group (thin leotard-clad girls with cool hair), and would ignore me if I tried to come over and chat with her. I was ostracized a lot because I was different: braces, big curly hair, no boobs, a bit pudgy. So I tended to hang out with the male dancers, who seemed to welcome me. One guy in particular paid attention to me, and he happened to be the cutest boy in the troupe, and had just joined. Dark hair, olive skin. All the girls loved him.

On this particular day, he came up to me and slipped me a note. I read it later, and it was a really mushy love note. I was speechless. He called me over to a room on the side and wanted to talk to me. I told him how much I liked him and how special the note was to me. I was beaming from ear to ear and so excited. I think it was my first real heart-pounding crush.

And just then I heard faint giggling outside the door.

The group of girls (with my one 'friend' leading them) then burst into the room and pointed fingers at me and started laughing, and so did the boy. It became very clear to me that it was a set-up, and everyone was in on it. One giant joke to play on the girl that they referred to as "fat and ugly" and that I couldn't have friends unless I "paid them". I was devastated.

These things happened more often than I care to admit.

My parents forced me to go to month-long Ukrainian camps (like girl scouts, only much more wilderness-survival), and I hated going. I fought tooth and nail, explaining to them that I would get made fun of and picked on. They just told me to suck it up and "fight back". I didn't know how, even though ironically I had a black belt in karate by then (which made my dork-status even worse). Even when I was around 17 or 18 and running the camps, every time I made genuine friends with a guy, I would be made fun of, my stuff would get stolen or ruined, no one would sit with me in the canteen, and someone would spread rumours that I was a creepy boy-stalker, which would inevitably end up reaching the guy that I was friends with, and he'd end up ostracizing me as well. Sounds like a movie, right?

The only time I can remember ever defending myself was when I was in catholic school, at 12 years old. A girl kept pushing me on the playground, and taunting me. Again and again. And I snapped, running at her, pushing her down on the ice-glazed ground and pulling a clump of hair out of her head. And I finally got some respect.

This is not a sob-story by any means, and I don't need any sympathy. But what this does is give an indication of possibly why I've never let myself fully open up to women. I don't fully trust them (except for my sister-in-law).

Case in point: I've known this British girl for 3 years. I've gotten close to her, and it's been a rather lovely friendship. Though I've always been the one to call or email her to ask her what she's up to, and I have felt like it's been a bit one-sided, I've tried to ignore that.

Until now.

She lives only 20 minutes away, and yet she's never seen me throughout this pregnancy. Doesn't email or call to ask me how I am. Yes, she has a 2-year old and she's a stay at home mother, and I do understand it can get stressful. And granted, I didn't really tell anyone that I was expecting until mid-summer, so I could tell she was mildly offended that I didn't tell her until late in the game. But nevertheless, I've been chasing her. Emailing to ask her how she is. Chasing her to meet me for lunch. Chasing her to meet me at SOME point before the baby gets here. But she's totally tuned me out and her entire focus is on her son, his activities and her other friends (which she tells me that she sees on a regular basis, which makes me even less enamored of her, let me tell you). There's also another girlfriend of mine here that is a stay at home mother with a 3-year old, and I've emailed her twice. No response. Though they both seem to update their Facebook status quite a bit and spend time organising meet-ups with other people. Including each other. Am I annoyed? Yes.

I really don't get it. Am I doing something wrong? If anyone out there can enlighten me about this female game-playing phenomenon, I would love to get more information. And I'm not trying to sound like a heartless bitch here, because I do understand that life gets in the way, and I will see how much a child will overwhelm me as a parent.. but at what cost to my relationships? This shouldn't be that complicated, should it?

What makes me angry is that I'm a giver by nature, to my own detriment. I will listen, I will be there physically, I will be there on the phone, I will give you the shirt off my back if you need it. I'm realising that this isn't an admirable quality sometimes, and I end up looking like the needy chick waiting by the phone.

If this is telling me that I need to just let go and find friends who actually give a shit about me and don't always take take take, then I think I've finally learned my lesson.